


Slow Hands

by Slowprogress



Category: The 100
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 04:24:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3555917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slowprogress/pseuds/Slowprogress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke walks into the forest and tries her very best to disappear.  Unfortunately for her, like with everything else since landing on the ground, things don't go exactly as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow Hands

She heads back to the dropship, because she doesn't really have anywhere else to go.

She's sad and guilty, but she's not on a mission to get herself killed. At least she doesn't think she is. She needs shelter, food and water so she heads to the first place where they had a semblance of safety on the ground, and tries to work out what she has. By the end of the day she has a small fire going, two bottles filled with clean water and nothing more than a few nuts to eat. It's enough though. It's quiet, relatively safe for now and it gives Clarke time to think. It's all she needs really.

She spends long hours sitting and watching the fire burn. She doesn't cry or slit her wrists, so that's good. She doesn't think much though, or not about the things she ought to be thinking about. Mostly she wonders if it's going to rain the next day and about how she'll need to find somewhere else to stay, because she knows Bellamy understood why she had to leave and wont come looking for her, but her mother? Her mother will want to save Clarke. She'll want to bring Clarke back to the camp and she'll expect her to be the daughter she's always known and Clarke...Clarke isn't that girl any more. She'll never be anything like that girl again.

Or maybe she was never that girl to begin with, never good or merciful, the ground forcing her true nature to the forefront.

She gets sick, her stomach heaving up the water and nuts she'd forced down earlier, throat burning with the sting of acid. She cries then, crawls away from her own sick and turns her back on the heat of her small fire. She sits like that, staring at this forest that has seemingly stolen her soul, for hours. When the sun finally comes up her fire has burned itself out and there are no tears left for her to cry. She wont cry again, because it wont bring the people she killed back. The kids in Mount Weather will never kick a ball around again, Maya's kindness will be buried with her and the grounders from TonDC's fight is over for good. Clarke did those things so her friends could live. The thing that has her swallowing bile down is that deep down inside, she knows she would make those same choices again even knowing what the outcome would be.

She regrets taking so many lives, but she does not regret saving her friends and family. She doesn't have it in her to put strangers lives before those of the people she knows and loves. It still doesn't mean she can look those same people in the eye though, knowing what she did to keep them alive. She just can't and maybe that makes her a coward, but for once she doesn't have to think about them. The Mountain Men are dead, the grounders are not a threat and Clarke doesn't have to protect them right now. For the first time since setting foot on the ground she has no one depending on her, no one looking to her for answers. There is a sense of freedom in that that she did not expect to feel in this moment. She doesn't deserve it either, and there is shame in admitting it, but she's going to grab it with both hands.

So Clarke pulls herself up and sets to work. She goes through the dropship again to see what she can salvage and use. She piles it all up on the bottom level and realizes that once she finds a place to make camp, she'll have to make at least a few trips back for everything. She ignores the thought that creeps in about how this seems permanent, how she's planning on building something lasting, how she never explicitly promised Bellamy that she would come back. She simply picks up what she thinks can be used to build a sturdy structure, takes whatever materials there are and looks for something to use as a bag. It takes her a good few hours and she knows she should probably just spend another night here, at her first home on the ground, but it's the thought of the people she shared it with that drives her out in the end.

So she takes off into the forest again, but she makes sure Mount Weather is towards her back the whole time.

`

It takes her more than a month to build herself a home of sorts. It's not very pretty, but she was lucky enough to find a structure that survived nuclear war and 97 years and somehow still had most of a roof and only one wall missing. She walks for what feels like days between it and the dropship, carrying everything from sheets of metal to seats. In the end she has to build a pallet out of a door and some safety harnesses, because it's easier to drag it all through the forest. She has makeshift pots, two good spears and some twisted metal that works for cutting. At the end of that long month she sits down and wanders what it means that not once on her return trips did she ever run into her mother or someone else from the Ark looking for her. It hurts to think that maybe they don't want her back, but a small part of her hopes that they just somehow understood why she left.

Her first winter she still almost ends up starving. She learns to fish thanks to it though, because necessity is a bitch of a teacher. She's not very good at hunting, but the spears work well enough for the fish and she always did exceptionally well at studying the plants of earth. She spends days tending her little garden of herbs and some root vegetables that are easy to grow, liking how it tires her out enough that at night she barely lays her head down before she's fast asleep. She doesn't dream and she's eternally grateful for that.

Early in the next autumn she's out trying to set some snares, hoping to catch any of the small animals that roam the area, when she hears the pounding of hooves on the forest floor. She instinctively takes cover, watches as eight or so warriors pass by quickly, and then spends the afternoon a little stunned when she realizes that she probably hasn't spoken to another human being in eight or nine months. She sings as she sits at the fire that night, sings until her throat hurts. Then she just sits and thinks about Atom and how it all started that day. How that was the first time the forest, this place, changed her. Or showed her who she really was. The thought doesn't upset her though, because it doesn't really matter. She is who she is now, knowing the reason wont ever change that.

`

She's well into her second year on her own, the quiet a pleasant companion at this point, when she gets the fright of her life. She wakes up early like she does everyday, grabs the pot she uses to boil water to wash with and heads outside to start the fire. She doesn't expect to find Indra and a horse standing in front of her when she pushes her door open.

“Holy shit!” She drops the heavy pot and quickly steps back, trips over said pot and lands on her ass, staring up at Indra.

“It constantly surprises me when my scouts inform me that you have somehow managed to survive another season, Clarke of the Sky People. It truly does.” Indra shakes her head and hauls Clarke to her feet, but the gesture is somewhat friendly despite her obvious judgement of Clarke's capabilities to keep herself alive.

“I'm sorry, it's just that I wasn't expecting you. Or anyone else really...and what do you mean your scouts?” Clarke is rapidly getting over her shock and moving towards heavy suspicion.

Indra scoffs and rolls her eyes heavily, back to looking intensely irritated with Clarke and her very existence. It's familiar ground at least.

“You honestly expect that you can live in our territory and we would not know of it? You have been left at peace to live as you are simply because The Commander allowed it. The only reason I am here today is because your help is needed.”

Clarke feels the press of something heavy against her chest and her heartbeat jerks with fear. “What's wrong? Is my people in danger?”

She doesn't realize she's stepped well into Indra's space until a hand grabs her upper arm and gives a firm shake. “Calm yourself, girl. Your people are well, they prosper as far as I know. It is one of my own that is in need of help. She is with child, but the birth has come upon her early, and we are closer to you then we are to Nyko. So you must come.”

A part of Clarke wants to tell her to go to hell, that their people abandoned her when they were needed, but Indra gave Lincoln the choice to come back. That meant the world to Octavia, so Clarke gives a small nod and prepares herself.

She doesn't have much with her that could help, but she remembers a little from what her mother had told her back on the Ark about birth and babies and her studies had already leaned heavily towards her future as a doctor, so she goes and hopes for the best. She does not owe these people much more than that.

`

The girl is just that, a young girl. She is maybe sixteen at best and in such obvious distress that Clarke can't help but feel sympathy ripple down her back along with fear. She is honestly not equipped for this, not in any way, but it's obvious something must be done.

She's already taking her jacket off and pushing her sleeves up when she turns to Indra. “How far along is she?”

Indra, for the first time since she has known the woman, looks ill at ease and somewhat hesitant. “I believe she was to have her baby at the end of this season, but I know not much of such things so I could be wrong. Babies and childbearing is not what I was trained for.” She gives the girl another nervous look and turns without another word to leave.

Clarke does the maths quickly. The baby was meant to be born at the end of spring, so she's at least six to seven weeks early. She works steadily for the next four hours, keeping track of contractions and checking regularly to see how far the girl, Kensi, is dilated. She's close as it is and Clarke tries to keep her calm, so she spends most of those four hours talking to Kensi as well. It's the most she's spoken in years.

“So the father is a pig who you plan to skin alive as soon as you are able to stand again. It sounds like quite the love story.”

Kensi grunts as Clarke holds her hand through the contraction. “I care not for love right now, I care only for my body that is being torn in two. Walk with me to the river he said, we can watch the moon reflect off it's surface he said. Never again will a boy talk me out of my clothes, I promise you this now. Five minutes of huffing and puffing and now something living is trying to claw it's way out of me and he keeps talking about building us a home when he can barely grow himself a beard.”

Clarke can't help the laugh that escapes and the sound surprises her. She didn't know she was still capable of doing that.

“Well, I'll try to make sure the baby doesn't actually claw it's way out of you, alright? Just forget about murdering the proud father for a bit and push when I tell you to push, ok?” She gets another pained grunt as an answer.  Clarke isn't as nervous as she should be, because even though the baby is coming soon and she's never actually helped anyone give birth, her mother had once told her that when it comes to having babies it's the mother that does all the work.

Kensi's brother is out looking for young Sterling, the oh so proud father, as he and half their village had gone to trade with people from the Water Clans. It's why Nyko wasn't here either, as Indra had explained that this was a yearly trek that most of the Trigedakru made. So there wasn't really anyone else to help at this point and it was too late to hope that the brother caught up with the travelers and came back in time.

Clarke checked again and new that they couldn't put this off any longer, there was definitely a baby trying to make it's way out right this second.  “Ok, uhm, I think you're going to have to start pushing now. Just push as hard as you can until I tell you to stop, got it?”

Kensi does exactly as Clarke asks. She pushes until she's red and sweaty and she's screamed so much her voice sounds torn somehow.Clarke is not very proud to admit that the minute the head literally pops out she screams herself. It startles poor Kensi enough that she stops pushing.

“What? What's wrong? Does it have two heads? Is it _ugly_?” She sounds delirious at this point and Clarke pulls herself together. “Uh, no, no it's mostly just...really coming out of you at this point.” The absolutely scathing look that the girl gives her is enough to remind Clarke that they have very pressing matters to attend to.

She doesn't see anything around the baby's neck and hopes that means the umbilical cord is where it's supposed to be. She doesn't know if she's meant to look for anything else and she doesn't really get the chance, because Kensi is screaming and pushing again and the baby is twisting itself out with a wet whooshing sound and Clarke almost loses her breath at the sight.

She doesn't know when she reached out to help, but her hands are cradling the baby and it doesn't hit the floor like she absurdly thought it would a mere second ago. She and Kensi both spend a few stunned seconds staring at the baby, but then Clarke reaches for the knife and cuts the umbilical cord. The baby isn't making any noise and she knows that's normal, that there's fluid that needs to be removed, but she doesn't have anything to use for suction. So at the end of the day she feels terrible for doing it, but she spanks the little girl once and then the sound of a healthy breath being taken is followed by an almighty scream.

It's a fantastic sound. Brilliant. The best thing Clarke has heard in years and she's so relieved she starts to cry right along with the red faced little thing. Kensi is watching them with an odd look on her face though, like she's thinking very hard and very seriously about something.

“What's wrong? Are you feeling...” Clarke doesn't get to say anything else though, because suddenly she understands the look on Kensi's face.

There is _definitely_ something else trying to claw itself out from down there.

“Oh. Oh holy shit, ok. You're having twins. That's...ok, we can do that. We just got that one out easily, didn't we? What's another one, right?” Clarke almost drops the first baby in her haste to get to the second one, her panicked babble going thankfully unnoticed.

Kensi screams and swears and Clarke knows for certain that if young Sterling magically appeared before them now she would help the girl murder him. How could a seventeen year old boy too inept to grow a beard father twins?!

Mercifully the second baby births itself much like the first one did. Clarke has to do very little else than making sure the baby doesn't plop itself down on the ground when it comes out and cuts the cord again.

She lays the first little girl in Kensi's exhausted arms and holds the other similarly wrapped bundle in her own. She cannot look away from the small beginning in her arms, because in that moment she knows that's exactly what a baby is. It's the beginning of a life and a story and today she helped that happen. Clarke has only ever taken life at this point, but today she helped create it.

Or, well, Kensi and the probably soon to be deceased Sterling literally created that life, but Clarke helped it into being as well. Her hands protected them from hurt the second they left the womb, her hands guided them to their first breaths. Her hands are capable of more than just death.

“Thank you, Clarke Griffin of the Sky People. Thank you for being here with me today.” Kensi is smiling at her tiredly and Clarke has no words for her in this moment. She simply leans over and kisses her on the forehead, then pulls back and does the same to the little girl in her arms.

It is she who should be thanking them.

`

In the morning she is woken by the sound of a door being thrown open and the consequent screaming of two upset babies. She is very disorientated for a few seconds before realizing where she is and why she's there. She recognizes Nyko's face and assumes the lanky boy who is practically vibrating beside him with joy is the infamous Sterling.

“We came as soon as we heard.” It is Nyko who calmly speaks as he steps up towards the mother and her two newborn daughters.

Clarke gets up and steps towards him when he beckons and she's handed a baby when she reaches him. They step away from the embracing teenagers on the bed and Clarke watches as Nyko gently lays the little girl in his arms out on the table before him. He runs his hands across her head, leans down and presses an ear to her little chests, methodically counts each and every finger and toe. He runs a finger up the inside of her foot and smiles when she pulls her little leg up towards her chest.

“She seems strong and healthy, despite how small she is. It is a good sign, her will is strong to live.” Clarke passes the next little one to him and watches him repeat the process with her.

He seems to linger a little when he listens to her chest, a small frown on his face as he finishes off. “Her chest rumbles when she breathes. I will make an ointment for the mother to rub into her back to help the baby rid herself of the fluid.” He nods like that will settle it and wraps the baby back up in it's warm coverings.

They settle the children back on the bed with their tired, but elated parents, and gives them their privacy. Outside the sun is barely up and the village is slowly coming to life. Nyko lays a hand against her back and smiles at her.

“It has been many years since I have heard of a mother bearing two children at once and even longer since hearing of them both being healthy and surviving. Today is a good day. You have done well, Clarke.”

Clarke shrugs. “I didn't really do anything. I mean there wasn't much for me to do, you know? And if something did go wrong, I really don't know if I would have been able to help her at all. I wouldn't have known what to do really.”

Nyko looks at her for a long time, obviously contemplating something very seriously. “Then perhaps you should learn what to do.” He smiles and walks away and Clarke has no more reason to stay, so she goes as well.

`

Weeks later when Clarke opens her door (and absolutely does not drop her pot again) to the sight of Indra and a horse before her, she thinks about Nyko's smile and wonders how she did not see it coming.

“There is a woman about three hours to the west that is in need of your help. Nyko cannot go himself, but he says the child will come easily enough. Your help will be sufficient.” She pauses and smirks somewhat. “And I thought it would amuse you to know that Kensi has named her children for you. Griffin and Clarke are alive and well and _very_ loud.”

`

She goes back after the seventh baby she delivers is stillborn.

She is twenty one years old and she has not seen her mother in three years, but that is not why she comes back. She knows from Nyko that her people have taken the mountain as their own. They are not allies, not after what Lexa had done, but they are not enemies either. Clarke is simply happy that even a semblance of peace exists.

She is not prepared for how happy she is when she finally sees her mother again. The best thing about it is that her mother is happy to see her as well. She knows she should never have doubted that, but there will always be a part of Clarke that will wonder if monsters like her deserve love.

She doesn't think about that now though, not when her mother is hugging her so hard it hurts. Not when she can see Bellamy and Raven and Monty smiling over her mother's shoulder at her.

“I've missed you so much, mom.” Abby is crying too hard to say anything back, so Clarke just strokes her hair and holds her harder. “I'm sorry I left for so long, but I couldn't stay, not after everything.”

She wont stay, but she does not tell her mother that. Not yet. This mountain will never be her home, no matter that everyone she loves lives in it. She doesn't know if anything but the quiet forest and her three walled house will ever feel like home again.

She came to learn everything she could about childbirth. Her mother had supplies and knowledge that Clarke and Nyko lacked, things that could save a baby or a mother if she was willing to share it with them.

Clarke wanted to know these things, because she was tired of death. She did not want more of it on her hands and staying in the forest pretending that there wasn't more she could learn to help did not sit well with her. Not any more.

“So you want to be a doctor after all.” Abby makes it a statement of fact when they're alone later and finally talking about why Clarke came back.

“No, they have healers and medicine and it's not all as rudimentary as I thought once, but childbirth here is pretty much dependant on the mother still. They push and hope for the best, because there's no way to know ahead of time if something is wrong. I want to learn, specifically, about childbirth and everything that leads up to it. I want basic equipment if you can spare it, so I can set up a small clinic maybe that the woman could travel to. Or I could travel to them, which is what I'd prefer at this point.”

Clarke has given this a lot of thought and spoken to Nyko about it in depth. If her mother or any of the other medically trained staff from the Ark were to suddenly travel all over territories that did not belong to them their peace would be short lived. The grounders regard Clarke as a bit of a legend though, because at the end of the day it is she who ended the Mountain Men's reign of terror, something their own commander could not even do. So Clarke is allowed into villages and territories, welcomed actually, and if they are to do this then it has to be her.

“So you would learn all of this and leave again.” Her mother looks old in that moment. Old and defeated somehow.

Clarke does not let that deter her though. “Yes, I would leave, but I would also come back again. It wouldn't be goodbye, just a see you later.”

Her mother nods slowly, but she still looks sad. “Ok. If this is what you want to do, what makes you happy, I'll teach you.”

Clarke isn't sure if she's happy. Not to say that bringing a child into this world does not give her joy, but those are short moments spread over time. As a whole perhaps then her life isn't a happy one, but hopefully it can at least be a purposeful one.

`

It was probably always inevitable that she would one day end up in Polis.

What is surprising is that it is her mother that invites her this time. Clarke has kept true to her word. She spent a year with her mother learning everything she could from her in that time, then another three doing exactly what she said she would. She travelled to where she was needed and came back when she could. Her home was still a quiet spot in the forest, but she spent a little less time there.

She spent her time instead with her mother, with Bellamy and Raven, with Octavia and Lincoln and Monty. Things between Jasper and herself would never be fine again, but Clarke expected and accepted that.

What did surprise her was how her mother eventually started spending time with Nyko. She taught him about medicine as she knew it and he in turn taught her. They spoke and found common ground and somehow that ended up with her mother reaching out to Lexa.

When Clarke asked her about it, Abby had shrugged and smiled. “We can't hide in this mountain forever, Clarke, there's a whole world out there and we can be a part of that. We can contribute to that. That's what Nyko has taught me, what you have taught me.”

She sat down and poured herself some water, sipped it slowly.

“Kane once said that The Commander was a visionary and it's true. One mistake? That doesn't suddenly change that fact. Her people may have doubted her after what happened with Mount Weather, but the alliance of the twelve clans held. It held, because she has done what no one before her could have. She forced peace between her people, Clarke. She wanted to rebuild the world. She set up trade routes and encouraged learning. She is giving them a future and I can help with that. We can be a part of that future if we can set our difference aside.”

So Clarke travelled and watched the world change bit by bit. Watched until it brought her to this moment, this place. She is twenty five years old and she will see Lexa today for the first time in seven years. She has still taken more lives than she has helped bring into this world, but she can finally stand to look at her own face in the mirror. So there's that, at least.

Polis is fast becoming a large city. There is a market, a school, a busy harbour and now also a clinic. Over the years they have found what was left of the stations that crashed into earth and between stripping them for everything useful and the tools available from Mount Weather, they have built generators. Polis will have electricity to run the clinic. Raven and Wick have a ten year plan to eventually implement solar panels and use the ocean for renewable energy.

The world is rebuilding and Clarke cannot hide in the forest any longer. Her mother wants her to run a part of the clinic and to help train people. So she has come, because it was inevitable. Just like this moment has always been inevitable.

Lexa does not sit toying with a knife on her throne when Clarke walks in this time, she is merely standing with her hands held behind her back and her chin angled up. She is proud and defiant. She is unapologetic.

She is as beautiful as Clarke remembers.

“Hello, Clarke.”

**Author's Note:**

> Drunk me had fic idea! Clarke: reluctant midwife of the forest. So yeah, my ideas aren't that great. Sue me!


End file.
